CONFERENCE “RETROSPECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY: JUSTIFICATION AND CONDITIONS”
22-23 September 2025, University of Siena
We are pleased to announce that a conference on “Retrospective Responsibility: Justification and Conditions” will be held at the University of Siena 22-23 September 2025.
The subject of the conference is retrospective responsibility, i.e. responsibility for actions that have already taken place, in particular to clarify whether someone is accountable. The aim of the conference is to justify and specify the individual conditions of retrospective responsibility via determining the function of retrospective responsibility within the framework of a more comprehensive theory of social control by means of sanctioned norms. In addition to general contributions on the function of responsibility, there will therefore be contributions on individual conditions of retrospective responsibility that are particularly in need of clarification.
PROGRAMME
Monday, 22nd September 2025
09.00-09.15 Opening
1. GENERAL APPROACHES TO RESPONSIBILITY:
09.15-10.25 James Lenman (Sheffield) – Owning It
Coffee break
10.50-12.00 Sofia Bonicalzi (Roma Tre) – Beyond Monism: A Contextual and Pluralistic Approach to Moral Responsibility
12.10-13.20 Christoph Lumer (Siena) – Outline of a Social Control Theory of Retrospective Responsibility
Lunch (Antica Trattoria Papei – Via del Mercato 6)
2. PUNISHMENT AND BLAME:
15.00-16.10 Niels de Haan (Vienna) – The Core-Periphery Model for Theories of Blame
Coffee break
3. CAUSALITY AND WRONGDOING:
16.40-17.50 Carolina Sartorio (Rutgers) – Responsibility, Causation, and the Cart-Horse Metaphor
18.00-19.10 Michael S. Moore (Illinois) – The Several Faces of Wrongdoing (NB. Online session)
20.00 Dinner (Ristorante Pizzeria Spadaforte – Piazza il Campo 13)
Tuesday, 23rd September 2025
4. CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF RESPONSIBILITY:
09.00-10.10 D. Justin Coates (Houston) – Normative Competence, Mental Disorder, and Degrees of Responsibility
Coffee break
10.40-11.50 Anneli Jefferson (Cardiff) – Real Selves, Capacities and Mental Disorders
12.20-13.10 Olof Leffler (Siena) – The Role of Reflection in Reasons-Responsiveness
Lunch (Ristorante Pizzeria All’Orto de’ Pecci – Via di Porta Giustizia 39)
5. ALTERNATIVE POSSIBILITIES:
15.00-16.10 Christian List (LMU Munich) – Responsibility without Alternative Possibilities?
Coffee break
6. RESPONSIBILITY OF COLLECTIVE AGENTS:
16.40-17.50 Nathan Biebel (Jagiellonian Krakow) – Blame Incorporated: Effective blame and group moral agency
18.00-19.10 Bill Wringe (Bilkent/York) – How – If at All – Should we Distribute Responsibility for Collective Omissions?
20.00 Dinner (Enoteca i Terzi – Via dei Termini 7)
GENERAL INFORMATION
Date: 22–23 September 2025
Venue: The session will take place at the Sezione di Fisica (aka. Palazzina di Fisica), sala di riunione, at via Roma 56 in Siena (Google maps link).
Attendance of guests: The workshop will be held in person only.Attendance is free and open to anyone interested, but please e-mail us (olof.leffler@unisi.it or christoph.lumer@unisi.it) in advance to register. Importantly, please also notify us of whether you are interested in joining for lunch or dinner. If you have any questions, please contact: olof.leffler@unisi.it
Funding: Financed by the European Union – Next Generation EU: funds of project PRIN2022 CUP B53D23033960006, Person scientifically responsible Prof. Christoph Lumer. We are grateful for the support.
Coordination and contacts for any questions
Christoph Lumer (christoph.lumer@unisi.it)
Olof Leffler (olof.leffler@unisi.it)
ABSTRACTS
Biebel, Nathan W.:
Titel: Blame Incorporated: Effective blame and group moral agency
Abstract: The burgeoning literature concerning the ontology of group or corporate agency is largely motivated by the strong intuition that group agents are the appropriate targets of blame. However, in my view, it is the belief that blaming group agents is at least sometimes effective at changing their bad behavior that really drives the intuition that they can be blameworthy, for it would hardly matter whether blaming them was metaphysically legitimate if we didn’t believe it would actually work. So, does it ever work? In this paper I will argue that the answer is „yes“ but not in the way that it does with ordinary interpersonal blame. My claim is that it is nearly impossible for ordinary individuals to effectively blame a corporate agent using those methods that are typically effective in ordinary interpersonal moral interactions. However, blame that comes from another group agent is sometimes effective. Why might this be? The diagnosis I offer is that blame offered by an individual alone is neither strong enough nor clear enough for a group agent to take notice. However, blame offered by another group agent can be both strong enough and clear enough to be effective.
Bonicalzi, Sofia:
Title: Beyond monism: A contextual and pluralistic approach to moral responsibility
Abstract: This paper critiques monistic approaches to moral responsibility, which isolate one or two necessary conditions, such as control or rationality, to assess accountability. These models often fail in complex cases like manipulation or moral evil, where intuitions diverge. I propose a pluralistic, context-sensitive framework centered on autonomy, conceived as a flexible cluster of features rather than fixed criteria. This model, while normative, reflects how responsibility is commonly judged in real life, through the balancing of multiple considerations, and aims to offer a more nuanced and practical account of moral appraisal.
Coates, Justin:
Titel: Normative Competence, Mental Disorder, and Degrees of Responsibility
Abstract: To be morally responsible for an action is for that action to be imputable toyou in such a way that in light of having performed the action, you are deserving of characteristic forms of response (e.g., praise or blame). Plausibly, a necessary condition on standing in this relationship to your action(s) is that you be normatively competent (cf. Watson 1987, Wolf 1991, Fischer 1994, and Wallace 1994). Competence in any domain involves three essential components. First, one must be sensitive to domain-specific considerations. Second, one must be attuned to the significance of those considerations in the contexts in which they arise. Finally, one must be responsive to those considerations in a way that reflects their significance. Thus, for normative competence of the sort that putatively underwrites moral responsibility, it is necessary that the individual be sensitive, attuned, and responsive to practical reasons, including moral considerations.
Several well-known mental disorders seem to threaten agents’ normative sensitivity, attunement, and responsiveness. In the case of major depression, for example, agents report significant difficulty in conforming their behavior to considerations that they take to be weighty in their circumstances. This suggests that a severely depressed agent is not sufficiently responsive to practical reasons, and as a result, is not morally responsible for their failure to act in ways that they regard as being correct. By contrast, in the case of antisocial personality disorder (a disorder that has largely superseded talk of “psychopathy” or “sociopathy” amongst clinicians), individuals diagnosed with ASPD seem—at least in general—to be responsive to the considerations they take to be reasons. However, these individuals seem less capable of appreciating either that there are important reasons for, e.g., not manipulating others, or that such reasons merit serious, perhaps even decisive consideration in deliberation. In other words, such individuals seem to lack either sensitivity or proper attunement to moral considerations. This suggests that ASPD also undermines normative competence of the sort required for responsibility.
I will contend however that these conclusions are too quick. Our actions can be imputable to us to varying degrees, owing in no small part to the fact that we can instantiate the capacities that underwrite normative competence to varying degrees. Building on recent work on graded theories of responsibility (e.g., Coates and Swenson 2013, Nelkin 2015, Coates 2019, Brink 2021), I will argue that typically, mental disorders diminish (in some cases substantially so) but do not wholly undermine agents’ responsibility. In other words, many forms of mental disorder allow for more robust moral agency than seemingly entailed by extant normative competence theories of responsibility. I conclude by considering what it might mean for agents to possess diminished responsibility, and how that affects the normative considerations which bear on how we should respond to such agents.
Haan, Niels de (U Vienna):
Titel: The Core-Periphery Model for Theories of Blame
Abstract: In this paper, I further develop the core-periphery model with a specific focus on theories of blame. This model is an alternative to models based on family resemblance or classical analysis and is compatible with various methods of theory construction (e.g., reflective equilibrium, cost-benefit, paradigm-based, tri-level method). A core feature of blame is present in all instances of blame. A periphery feature of blame is not necessarily present in all instances of blame, but in an important sub-class of blame-interactions (e.g., dyadic overt blame-interactions). A specific subclass of the explanandum is called a domain, which can be coarse- or fine-grained. Auxiliary hypotheses are hypotheses that concern periphery features or the relation between core and periphery features either within a particular domain or in general. After setting out the model, I explain how cognitive, conative, emotional and functional theories of blame (or at least their crucial features) could plausibly be understood on this model. Next, I argue that the core-periphery model has three main advantages over rival models. First, the model allows for periphery features to play a crucial explanatory role for a subset of the explanandum. Second, the model is better equipped to deal with extension and intension, thereby avoiding problematic conceptual stretching. Third, the model allows to a greater extent for complex multi-level layering of interrelated features. I conclude that this model offers a higher potential for explanatory power and extensional adequacy than rival models.
Jefferson, Anneli:
Titel: Real selves, capacities and mental disorders
Abstract (20.8.25): Real self views, according to which we are responsible if an action is expressive of the desires and values we endorse, are one prominent type of responsibility theory. Reasons responsiveness or capacitarian views, on the other hand, state that responsibility requires the capacity to recognise and respond to moral reasons. Which theory best accounts for the responsibility of those suffering from mental illness? Capacitarian accounts better account for the criteria of knowledge and understanding of moral reasons embedded in the criminal insanity defence. Should we conclude that real self views have nothing to say about moral responsibility or describe a different face of responsibility, such as attributability (Watson 1995, Shoemaker 2015)? I argue that things are not quite so simple. there is an important place for real self views which goes beyond the assessment of character or attributability. In some disorders, the question whether actions are best ascribed to the agent is of crucial importance both for backward looking responsibility, interpersonal interactions and for medical decision making. Family and clinicians want and need to know whether a person’s decisions and expressed desires or are not integrated into the individual’s personality and whether they should be seen as reflective of their values and cares. This is important in conditions such as eating disorders, addiction but also manic or depressive episodes. However, attributions of real self are complicated by longstanding problems distinguishing between the person and their mental health condition. Attributions of responsibility thus run the risk of erring in opposing directions: One is that we end up not taking individuals who identify with and endorse their condition seriously, the other is that we do not adequately take into account the influence of the illness on certain behaviours.
Leffler, Olof:
Title: The Role of Reflection in Reasons-Responsiveness
Abstract: If morally responsible agency involves responding to reasons, what is the role of reflection in such agency? Dana Nelkin and colleagues have presented two related puzzles the solutions to which, they think, suggest that a reflective ability should be explained as a central feature of reasons-responsiveness. But to frame the question correctly, I first argue against Nelkin’s setup in her first puzzle: her underlying assumption that we ought to explain an ability to reflect as a feature of a rational ability that distinguishes responsible persons from non-responsible non-persons is mistaken. We can hold that only persons are responsible without taking the rational ability to feature a reflective ability. Extrapolating from the second puzzle, we should rather ask what the role of reflection is in any account of responsibility which features reasons-responsiveness. To investigate what that role is, I criticize four positive hypotheses presented by Nelkin and colleagues: they fail to explain how an ability to reflect features in the reasons-responsive processes that plausibly are part of morally responsible agency. It may therefore seem like we should not think that a reflective ability is a central feature of reasons-responsive morally responsible agency. However, taking inspiration from the literature on focussed and proleptic blame, I argue that for an agent to be able to be a full participant in our responsibility practices, they must be able to reflect on the reasons communicated in such responsibility judgements for the judgements to be successful. This explanation vindicates the idea that there is a sense in which reasons-responsive responsible agency requires a reflective ability, after all.
Lenman, James W.:
Title: Owning It
Abstract: Frankfurtian views of responsibility say we are responsible for actions whose motivate we reflectively endorse. But most people think we can sometimes be responsible for actions that do not pass this condition, We can sometimes be culpable for what we do out of weakness. I will argue that is right but the Frankfurtian proposal still has a role to play in the context of the contractualist understanding of responsibility which I defend.
List, Christian
Titel: Responsibility without alternative possibilities?
Abstract: Many free-will compatibilists think that alternative possibilities are not necessary for free will and moral responsibility. Someone can be held responsible for an action, they say, even if he or she could not have acted otherwise. If the agent stands in the right relation to this action – for instance, the agent fully endorsed it and it is supported by the agent’s reasons – then the action counts as the agent’s own for the purposes of responsibility ascription. In this talk, I will critically examine a recent promising version of this view, developed by Dietmar Hübner. Hübner defends a novel version of the proposal that an agent’s responsibility is grounded in the agent’s reasons-responsiveness, which seems to offer a good response to the incompatibilists’ claim that the compatibilist account of free will is too watered down to serve as a basis for responsibility. I will argue, however, that this proposal is unsuccessful. Even if we concede that reasons-responsiveness suffices to ground free will and responsibility, I will suggest that there cannot be genuine reasons-responsiveness without the possibility of acting otherwise. My thesis, in short, is that realism about reasons-responsiveness cannot be justified without the presupposition of alternative possibilities.
Lumer, Christoph
Titel: Outline of a social control theory of retrospective responsibility
Abstract: The aim of the paper is to sketch a general comprehensive theory of retrospective responsibility within a welfarist framework.
1. The theory of retrospective responsibility is embedded in a comprehensive theory of the social control of individuals‘ actions. Moral and legal norms, attribution of responsibility, sanctions, but also associated institutions such as the legislature, jurisdiction, police and penitentiaries are part of a vast complex of social control of the actions of members of society. This comprehensive system is briefly outlined, and the function of the system of responsibility attribution in it is worked out in order to justify the entire conception of attribution of responsibility and to gain specifications for the individual conditions for retrospective responsibility.
2. The main task is the precise determination of the conditions of retrospective responsibility and their justification within the framework of the functional role of responsibility.
3. Finally, some critical presuppositions of attributing responsibility that are particularly controversial in philosophical debates will be mentioned and briefly discussed: (i) auctoritas and genuine imputability despite the absence of ultimate control; (ii) possible guiltless „guilt“ and unjust punishments due to the causal determination of decisions; (iii) minimal freedom of choice as a precondition of responsibility.
Moore, Michael:
Titel: The Several Faces of Wrongdoing
Abstract: The lecture/paper begins by clarifying the place of wrongdoing in our overall assessments of deontic blameworthiness (or retrospective responsibility) for some bad state of affairs (which is typically but not always a harm to non-consenting others). Wrongdoing is distinguished from culpability, and prima facie versions of each are distinguished from all-out versions (the latter but not the former take into account the justifications and the excuses). In addition, primary wrongdoing (where one’s means are limited to natural processes) is distinguished from secondary (or “derivative”) wrongdoing (where one’s means include the intentional actions of other agents, who are the primary wrongdoers).
The body of the paper deals with the constituents of primary and secondary wrongdoing, beginning with the former. Primary wrongdoing is seen as consisting of three (or perhaps four) relations, each sufficient for primary wrongdoing: causation, counterfactual dependence, probabilistic dependence, and a mysterious “agency involvement factor” some see as irreducibly residing in human actions. For this taxonomy to work, causation cannot be reduced to either counterfactual dependence or to probabilistic dependence; theories of each of these three relations are alluded to in order to make plausible this lack of reducibility. Illustrations of each of these relations at work are also given: the standard case for causal responsibility is a voluntary act causing a bad state of affairs. The standard case for counterfactual dependence is an omission that fails to prevent some harm where the omitter possesses the ability to have prevented that harm (with non-standard cases including preventions of benefit cases, double prevention cases, and remote but necessary events cases, with an additional (but controversial) non-standard case being that of backtracking counterfactual dependence). The standard case of probabilistic dependence is what are known as the lost chance cases.
Secondary wrongdoing consists of actions of assisting, procuring, or agreeing by the secondary wrongdoer, when such actions either cause the primary wrongdoer to do his wrongs, or when the completion of those wrongs by the primary wrongdoer counterfactually or probabilistically depends on the acts of the secondary wrongdoer.
Sartorio, Carolina:
Titel: Responsibility, Causation, and the Cart-Horse Metaphor.
Abstract: What is the relation between responsibility and causation? Some think that we can only be morally responsible for what we cause, and that our responsibility for an outcome is always grounded in having caused it; in contrast, others think that we can be morally responsible for outcomes that we don’t cause, as in the case of collective harms, and that our responsibility in those cases is grounded in other factors. I first argue against both of these views. I argue that, perhaps surprisingly, they fail for what is essentially the same reason: they are too dependent on the truth of controversial metaphysical assumptions. I then propose and defend an alternative view that is more neutral in this respect, and one that is, I argue, independently plausible. Finally, I draw some implications of the view for the problem of collective harms.
Wringe, Bill:
Titel: How – if at all – should we distribute responsibility for collective omissions?
Abstract:
FORMER EVENTS
EURO-TRANSUMANESIMO E RESPONSABILITÀ
CONFERENZA DEL PROF. STEFAN SORGNER (John Cabot University, Roma)
24/4/2025, Università di Siena, San Niccolò (Via Roma 56), aula 349A, ore 17.
TALK OF PROFESSOR STEFAN SORGNER (John Cabot University, Rome)
24th April 2025, University of Siena, San Niccolò (Via Roma 56), aula 349A, 5:00 p.m.
L’Euro-transumanesimo è un concetto introdotto da Stefan Sorgner stesso, che lui contrappone al transumanesimo americano / Silicon Valley tecnocratico.
Further information / ulteriori informazioni: Locandina; riassunto esteso.
COLLECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
Workshop at the University of Siena: 11th of November 2024
Programme
I. GENERAL THEORY OF COLLECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
1. 10.00-11.10: Ludger Jansen (PTH Brixen): Responsibility in/of/for Institutions
Coffee break
2. 11.30-12.40: Seumas Miller (U Canberra, U Oxford): Retrospective Collective Responsibility and Joint Moral Responsibility
Lunch
3. 14.10-15.20: Christoph Lumer (U Siena): An Instrumentalist Theory of Collective Retrospective Responsibility
II. PROBLEMS OF COLLECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
4. 15.30-16.40: Olof Leffler (U Siena): Group Responsibility and the Enactor Role
Coffee break
III. SPECIAL ACTORS OF COLLECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
5. 17.00-18.10: Miguel Garcia-Godinez (U Bologna, U Cork): Retrospective and Prospective Responsibility in Proxy Action
6. 18.20-19.30: Federico Faroldi (U Pavia): Intention and Responsibility in AI Agents
Dinner (20.00)
Extended programme with abstracts
PRACTICALITIES
The workshop will be held at the University of Siena 11 November 2024. The session will take place at the Sezione di Fisica (also known as Palazzina di Fisica), sala di riunione (Google maps link).
Attendance is open to anyone interested, but please e-mail us (olof.leffler@unisi.it; or christoph.lumer@unisi.it) in advance to register. Importantly, please also notify us of whether you are interested in joining for lunch or dinner. The workshop will be held in person only.
Financed by the European Union – Next Generation EU.
Project PRIN2022 CUP B53D23033960006, Person scientifically responsible Prof. Christoph Lumer
OTHER FORMER EVENTS:
OTHER
ETHICS OF THE UKRAINE WAR
Online Workshop: 16-17th of February 2023
Programme, Abstracts, Papers
Content
On 24 February 2022, the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine and has since been waging an illegitimate war of aggression and conquest with many human rights violations and war crimes. Even if the vast majority of ethicists agree on this characterisation of this war and thus condemnation of the Russian attack, there are still enough open ethical questions regarding this war, some of which also interest the general population and politicians: Instead of defending itself massively with weapons and supplying them from Western countries, would not a pacifist strategy be morally better? Are there new types of crimes in this war? What obligations do other states have to help? How can this war (best) be ended? What justifications, including moral ones, are used to justify this war? etc.
The workshop brings together Ukrainian and Western philosophers to discuss these and other questions.
Website: http://www.lumer.info/?page_id=2116
Programme
| Thursday, 16.2.2023 | ||
| 10:45-11:00 CET 11:45-12:00 EET | Welcome, Introduction | |
| I. Applied Ethics of War – | Evaluations | |
| 11:00-11:45 CET 12:00-12:45 EET | Mykola Briukhovetskyi (Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University) | Mass volunteer activity as proof of the immorality of the positions of neutrality and pacifism in the war in Ukraine in 2022. |
| 12:00-12:45CET 13:00-13:45 EET | Christoph Lumer (U Siena) | The costs of freedom |
| Lunch | ||
| 14:00-14:45 CET 15:00-15:45 EET | Tetiana Gardashuk (H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the NAS of Ukraine) | Environmental Effects of Russian Aggression in Ukraine: Ethical Dimension |
| 15:00-15:45 CET 16:00-17:45 EET | Martin Hähnel (U Bremen) | Moral Complicity in War Crimes |
| Coffee, Tee | ||
| II. Metaethics of War | ||
| 16:15-17:00 CET 17:15-18:00 EET | Oleksandra Stebelska (Pol Tec Lviv) | The problem of moral responsibility under war conditions |
| 17:15-18:00 CET 18:15-19:00 EET | Sergii Sekundant (U Odessa) | Morals and war. Epistemological foundations of moral choice |
| Friday, 17.2.2023 | ||
| III. Social Philosophy of | War – Explanations | |
| 11:00-11:45 CET 12:00-12:45 EET | Oksana Panafidina & Nadiia Kozachenko (Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University) | How is the ending of the Russian-Ukrainian war possible? |
| 12:00-12:45 CET 13:00-13:45 EET | Kateryna Karpenko (Kharkiv National Medical University) | Patriarchy, violence, and ecological destruction in the context of the ethics of war |
| Lunch | ||
| 14:00-14:45 CET 15:00-15:45 EET | Mykhailo Bogachov (NAS of Ukraine, Visiting scholar U Hannover) | Platform Design and Moral Reasoning in the Face of an Existential Threat: A Ukrainian Case Study |
| IV: Existential Philosophy | of War | |
| 15:00-15:45 CET 16:00-16:45 EET | Inna Golubovych & Katerina Pavlenko (U Odessa) | Ethics of War: Situational and Spatial Approach in Ukrainian context |
| Coffee / Tea | ||
| 16:15-17:00 CET 17:15-18:00 EET | Sergii Shevtsov (U Odessa) | Ethics and ontology of war: violence as a paradigm of truth |
| 17:15-17:45 CET 18:15-18:45 EET | Closing – Next Steps |
Abstracts, Papers, and Slides
Bogachov, Mykhailo (NAS of Ukraine, Visiting scholar University of Hannover):
Platform Design and Moral Reasoning in the Face of an Existential Threat: A Ukrainian Case Study
Abstract: At the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukrainians showed exemplary solidarity and selflessness. I argue that digital platforms nudged Ukrainians toward this moral behavior, as well. AI effects of digital environments helped Ukrainians preserve their practical identity in the face of the existential threat, and make new war experiences a part of this identity. This helped recognize unconditional moral obligations. In some cases, features of platform design streamlined acting upon those obligations. I contend that the Ukrainian case may be somewhat generalizable to other communities which face an external existential threat. This has implications for practical ethics and political science.
Briukhovetskyi, Mykola (Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University):
Mass volunteer activity as proof of the immorality of the positions of neutrality and pacifism in the war in Ukraine in 2022
Abstract: The pacifist moral tradition, together with its accompanying attitudes of neutrality and non-interventionism, has often been associated with humanism and benevolence. Such an analogy is indeed admissible in military conflicts, the sides of which are not obvious. In a situation where the roles of aggressor and victim are obvious, this tradition can be immoral. Forcing the victim to be pacifist towards the aggressor means taking the side of the aggressor and depriving the victim of the right to self-defense and resistance. The war in Ukraine is a vivid example of the immorality (or at least obsolescence) of pacifism, since the roles of the parties in this war are also obvious: the actions of foreign troops on the territory of the country, leading to terror and casualties among the civilian population. The consequence of this is the massive involvement of the entire civilian population of Ukraine in volunteer activities and a situation where any personal neutrality, policy of non-intervention or pacifism can be regarded by society as indulging the aggressor.
Gardashuk, Tetiana (H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the NAS of Ukraine):
Environmental Effects of Russian Aggression in Ukraine: Ethical Dimension:
Abstract: The current Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine makes extensive impacts on nature and the quality of human life. Environmental harm from military actions becomes a challenge for Europe, asking for a new type of solidarity. Apart from the legal assessment of the crimes of the current Russian aggression in Ukraine, this war needs in-depth ethical reflections in terms of the violation and valuation of the rights of Nature, humans, and non-human species, justice, and liability. In the presentation, the environmental effects of the current Russian-Ukrainian war will be described and assessed from the position of ethics, environmental ethics, and bioethics.
Golubovych, Inna & Kateryna Pavlenko (U Odessa):
Ethics of War: Situational and Spatial Approach in Ukrainian context:
Abstract: This presentation is based on the theoretical ideas of the «spatial turn» in modern philosophy and the humanities. One of the main presumptions is the etymological and semantic proximity of the concepts „ethos“ and „space“, „situation“, habitat which was emphasized by Heidegger. Situation“ in this context is the space of a responsible individual moral act, ethical act, «not an alibi in being» (M. Bakhtin). One of the theses to be discussed: situational and spatial approach vs “geopolitical temptation”. We propose to use this frame and coordinates to analyze the ethics of war in the Ukrainian context.
Honcharenko, Olha (National Academy of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Khmelnytskyi):
Rationality of the war from Russia against Ukraine from an ethical standpoint:
Abstract: I think there is more rationality than irrationality in this war. I would like to prove the thesis about the rationality of the war from Russia against Ukraine from an ethical standpoint.
Hähnel, Martin (University of Bremen):
Moral Complicity in War Crimes
Abstract: In my brief presentation, I attempt to identify different ways to describe and evaluate moral complicity in war crimes. Using a taxonomy developed by Thomas Aquinas, I examine possible cases of moral complicity during the current Ukrainian war. I conclude by discussing options for avoiding or relativizing moral complicity.
Karivets, Ihor (Pol Tec Lviv):
Some Metaethical Reflections on the Russian-Ukrainian War: Why This War Does Not Fit Within the Classical Theory of Just War:
Abstract: I argue that Russia’s war against Ukraine is not war in the classical meaning of the concept of war. Ongoing Russia’s war in Ukraine has historical, existential, and psychological (even psychiatric) reasons. In my presentation, I will try to explain them. Historically and existentially, contemporary Russia exists and acts as an archaic empire. This Russian empire wants to expand “Lebensraum” – the living space. Psychologically (even psychiatrically), contemporary Russia manifests itself as a deeply traumatized country and this trauma is strongly connected with the collapse of the Soviet Union, with the loss of “greatness” and “glory”.
Karpenko, Kateryna (Kharkiv National Medical University):
Patriarchy, violence, and ecological destruction in the context of the ethics of war:
Abstract: Gender is a major issue in authoritarian societies with which democracies compete. That is why Russia resorts to immoral manipulation of gender issues to justify the invasion of Ukraine. On the one hand, Russia uses the concept of hypermasculinity as a key means of controlling the regime inside the country. On the other hand, the war unleashed by Russia brings with it the violence of bombs and bullets, but also sexual violence, depletion of nature, and ecocide. The presentation will prove that the justification of the occupation of Ukraine by the desire to promote distorted norms and achieve demagogic “liberation” is the real face of the ethics of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Lumer, Christoph (Unitversity of Siena):
The Costs of Freedom
Abstract: The two most important moral positions on the general policy of the Western supporters of Ukraine against the Russian war of conquest and annihilation are: (i) military support (as massive as possible) of Ukraine by Western countries is morally good and obligatory (or at least permissible); (ii) such support is morally bad and therefore forbidden. Both positions are based on strongly diverging moral evaluations of the two main options for action – military support vs. immediate negotiations and ceasefire – but without adequately justifying them. The paper criticises claims by pacifists that such evaluations cannot or need not be justified, and then outlines a justification of thesis (i) on welfare ethical grounds.
Panafidina, Oksana & Nadiia Kozachenko (Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University):
How is the ending of the Russian-Ukrainian war possible?
Abstract: Since the Russian-Ukrainian war is not only Putin’s war, the ceasefire does not mean the ending of the war. Based on Kant’s hierarchical and dynamic model of mind, we use a transcendental approach to clarify the conditions of this war beginning and formulate the hypothetical conditions of its ending. The high level of support for the war by the Russians, and the lack of empathy for victims are just some of the consequences of the inability to use one’s own mind in the Kantian sense. It is caused by following maxims of imitation, logical egoism, and inconsistent thinking and makes full communication impossible.
Secundant, Sergii (University of Odessa):
Morals and war. Epistemological foundations of moral choice
Abstract:
Shevtsov, Sergii (University of Odessa):
Ethics and ontology of war: violence as a paradigm of truth
Abstract: The author suggests an approach based on understanding violence as labor with excessive use of force. This is related to the understanding of force as the truth. Thus, for the archaic mind, force (and violence), sacred, and truth were different projection-implementations of one entity. The civilizational world model contains in its basis not the principles of the single truth, but the principles of collaboration and coexistence of different stances instead of submission to one entity. Violence has an ontological dimension in the old model of the single truth, but cannot have it within a civilizational approach.
Stebelska, Oleksandra (Pol Tec Lviv):
The problem of moral responsibility under war conditions
Abstract: In February 2022, the Russian Federation invaded the territory of Ukraine. This event shocked the whole world, because no one could have imagined that such a barbaric and uncivilised style of relations between countries was possible in the 21th century. The war turned out to be the boundary situation which pointed to the socio-political, economic crisis in the world and the outdated and ineffective nature of international agreements, but also exacerbated many ethical issues: the problem of self-determination and responsibility, the correlation of goals and means, value orientations, the possibility/impossibility of justifying murder, just war. In such a period of time it is extremely difficult to conduct any analysis, especially for those who are in the epicenter of events. However, it is extremely difficult to avoid acute issues (no matter how painful they are) if we want to form a profound national consciousness, a conscious Ukrainian society.